Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following summarizes recent research on COVID-19. There are some research results that require further analysis to verify the findings, and others that were not yet certified by peer review.

COVID-19 has a lower survival rate for patients who have suffered a heart attack.

A new study has shown that the odds of having a heart attack survive are lower if a patient also has COVID-19. This is despite them being generally older than other heart patients. Researchers reviewed more than 80,000 heart attack victims in America in 2019, 2020. About 76,000 of these people had suffered heart attacks in the past year, whether at home, at work or elsewhere. The hospital was responsible for 15.2% of the COVID-19-related deaths, as opposed to 11.2% in heart attack patients with COVID-19. Among the roughly 4,000 patients who were already hospitalized when the heart attack occurred, 78.5% of those with COVID-19 died, compared to 46.1% of those without COVID-19, according to a report published on Friday in JAMA https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2785893. The researchers concluded that COVID-19 heart attack victims were more likely than others to go into cardiac arrest, which is when the heart ceases beating. They also had a lower likelihood of having to undergo procedures to clear clogged veins. The researchers said that more research was needed to discover why patients with heart attacks diagnosed as COVID-19 have a higher risk of dying.

Early Israeli data support Pfizer booster

Initial data from Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:) on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 booster vaccine and its partner BioNTech SE(NASDAQ:), which were published in peer-reviewed journals, suggest a dramatic reduction in severe infections within a short time after administration. Pfizer claims that the effectiveness of its vaccine decreases over time. Between late July and late September when the Delta version was dominant, more than 1.42 million people were tracked by researchers. The majority of these individuals had had at least one dose of the vaccine within five months. Half had had a second dose less than a week prior to being included in the study. According to The Lancet, https://, those who had received the booster showed a 93% reduction in COVID-19-related hospitalizations, 92% less risk of serious illness and an 81% decrease in risk of COVID-19 related death. In the study, 52 years was the average age. Both the unboosted and boosted group had identical lifestyles and similar health conditions. The data can’t prove cause-and-effect because it wasn’t a randomized controlled trial. It is unclear how much extra protection will last, as no one was followed for longer than 2 months and only half of those who were monitored for less than 2 weeks.

Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl on vaccines in development.